On Tuesday night, NBC News’s Dasha Burns aired an interview with Pennsylvania senatorial candidate John Fetterman, who needed a closed-captioned monitor to answer questions because of “auditory processing” struggles caused by his recent stroke. “In small talk before my interview,” Burns added, “it wasn’t clear he understood what I was saying.”
Oh, boy. Blue-check Twitter swarmed, attacking Burns for stating the obvious: Fetterman isn’t all right. It’s remarkable to watch how quickly partisans coalesce around a new talking point. For months, the national media has been telling us Fetterman’s campaign was completely “normal,” even as video emerges of the candidate struggling to cobble two coherent sentences in succession. In September, Fetterman said that the “only lingering problem” he experienced was occasionally missing a word or “mushing two words together.” Yet in only a few minutes last night, the entire left adopted a new position, denouncing any mention of his ailment